Jane Espenson's Tall Card Game

POSTED BY: SouthernMerc
UPDATED: Wednesday, September 22, 2004 13:25
VIEWED: 12053
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SOUTHERNMERC

Saturday, January 10, 2004 2:37 AM

In the commentary for "Shindig," Jane mentions she invented this card game, "Tall Card," for the episode and even posted it on the site. I was wondering if anyone had ever seen the rules for this game? If so I would love a copy. Thanks.

Jayne: "How big a room?"

IRISANNE

Saturday, January 10, 2004 12:37 PM

Yes, I just heard this commentary for the first time the other night, and I'd love to know more about this, too.

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"Hamsters is nice."

TRAGICSTORY

Saturday, January 10, 2004 1:11 PM

From the 5 seconds that I saw of it, it looks like a cross of Rook and Hearts.

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"Societies are supported by human activity, therefore they are constantly threatened by the human facts of self-intrest and stupidity." --Peter Berger

BILLIE

Sunday, January 11, 2004 8:44 PM

Seems pretty cool, if anyone finds out anything for sure let me know.

FFYING2

Sunday, January 11, 2004 9:26 PM

The recently deceased fan extraordinaire Lux Lucre did his best to recreate it. It's sort of poker meets mah-jongg.

Here are the rules he and others generated:

Quote:
Long Pai (Dragon Cards) follows Draw Poker rules unless otherwise stated.

6 suits (Plum, Peach, Orange, Apple, Apricot, Banana) of 12 cards (72 cards).

Ranks:
1-8 spots, Ace can be high or low.
Face Cards: Tortoise, Unicorn, Phoenix, Dragon (The Ssu-ling "Heavenly Beasts" of Chinese myth)

In addition to the 72 regular rectangular cards there are 6 round cards called "Tall cards" one for each of the 6 suits.

The Dealer shuffles the regular cards and the player to the right of the Dealer shuffles the Tall cards.

The Tall card for that hand is revealed after everyone antes up. After the first round of betting, players can discard and draw up to 3 cards OR the face up Tall card can be claimed by a player instead of a discard/draw.

Claiming the Tall card allows the cards in one's hand, that are of the same suit as the Tall card, to become wild in rank. If the option goes around and the Tall is not claimed, the Dealer is forced to claim the Tall.

Another round of betting takes place and surviving players still in the game reveal their hands with the highest ranked hand taking the pot.

=================================================

One interesting thing to note is that "5 of a kind" is a possible hand in Long Pai, since there are more than 4 suits.

Also links to rough drafts of cards he was working on; not sure if he finished:

http://forums.prospero.com/foxfirefly/messages?msg=8422.255

Ying
Firefly Funsite http://fireflyfunsite.home.att.net
Firefly Chinese Pinyinary http://fireflychinese.home.att.net

CHAEL

Sunday, January 11, 2004 10:04 PM

With all due respect to the dearly departed... I have to wonder why anyone would need to re-create the game by patching together their own rules. Ms. Espensen said she created rules for it, and that the rules once were posted on the Fox website for fans who wanted to play. Is it *that* hard to track down the original rules for the game?

FFYING2

Sunday, January 11, 2004 11:12 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by chael:
With all due respect to the dearly departed... I have to wonder why anyone would need to re-create the game by patching together their own rules. Ms. Espensen said she created rules for it, and that the rules once were posted on the Fox website for fans who wanted to play. Is it *that* hard to track down the original rules for the game?

I haven't listened to the "Shindig" commentary yet. But I never saw any rules posted on the official Fox site. I looked at every part of that site when it was up, as well as Haken's archive of it. If they were ever there, it was for some "magic moment."

I also seem to recall player Adam Baldwin himself saying on the Fox boards that they pretty much made the game up as they went along.

Ying
Firefly Funsite http://fireflyfunsite.home.att.net
Firefly Chinese Pinyinary http://fireflychinese.home.att.net

LUNATIKAT

Sunday, January 11, 2004 11:22 PM

I'm sorry. I must have missed this. Lux Lucre deceased? What happened?

lunatikat- you can run but you can't hopscotch

CHAEL

Sunday, January 11, 2004 11:29 PM

Hmm.. That is odd. Listen to the Shindig commentary... it leaves one with a very different impression. Such as, Espenson also says that Glass, Maher and Baldwin all asked her to teach them the rules for when they shot that scene. Maybe she was embellishing.

CHAEL

Sunday, January 11, 2004 11:31 PM

yes. It's all quite sad:

http://forums.prospero.com/foxfirefly/messages?msg=12391.1

http://www.fireflyfans.net/thread.asp?b=2&t=3277

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